Abstract
It is demonstrated by three-dimensional quantum electrodynamics — particle-in-cell (QED-PIC) simulations that vacuum breakdown wave in the form of QED cascade front can propagate in an extremely intense plane electromagnetic wave. The result disproves the statement that the self-sustained cascading is not possible in a plane wave configuration. In the simulations the cascade is initiated during laser-foil interaction in the light sail regime. As a result, a constantly growing electron-positron plasma cushion is formed between the foil and laser radiation. The cushion plasma efficiently absorbs the laser energy and decouples the radiation from the moving foil thereby interrupting the ion acceleration. The models describing propagation of the cascade front and electrodynamics of the cushion plasma are presented and their predictions are in a qualitative agreement with the results of numerical simulations.
Highlights
It is demonstrated by three-dimensional quantum electrodynamics — particle-in-cell (QED-PIC) simulations that vacuum breakdown wave in the form of QED cascade front can propagate in an extremely intense plane electromagnetic wave
It follows from the simulations that at ct/λ 8 the foil plasma is compressed into a thin layer reflecting the laser radiation while the ions are continuously accelerated, as seen from Fig. 3(a)
We have demonstrated by 3D QED-PIC simulations of the laser-foil interaction at extremely high laser intensity that (i) a laser-driven vacuum breakdown in a form of QED cascade development is an immanent process for most of high-field phenomena and can develop even in a plane electromagnetic wave, or in other words, in wider range of the field configurations than it was previously supposed; (ii) the light sail (LS) regime of the ion acceleration becomes inefficient at extremely high intensities when the overdense electron-positron plasma cushion is produced between the laser radiation and the the foil
Summary
It is demonstrated by three-dimensional quantum electrodynamics — particle-in-cell (QED-PIC) simulations that vacuum breakdown wave in the form of QED cascade front can propagate in an extremely intense plane electromagnetic wave. The plane wave-like configurations are considered as not suitable for cascading because an electron initially at rest cannot be accelerated in this field in such way that it will be capable of emission of gamma-quanta with high enough energy[11,24,25,26]. The hole boring regime generally is characterized by significant reflection of the incident laser radiation, and cascading can be considered as in a kind of a scheme with two counter-propagating laser pulses This is not the case for the light sail (LS) regime when the target is a thin foil with the skin depth of the order of the target thickness[29,34]. Though LS regime has gained substantial interest www.nature.com/scientificreports/
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